Can you feel the rAIG?

In case you haven't missed it, the entirety of America is in an uproar over AIG paying some $165million dollars in bonuses to some of its employees. Apparently, people threw a hissy about this because AIG had just received billions of dollars in government bailout and now they're paying bonuses to "the very unit that had nearly destroyed the company" (or so sayth the New York Times).

How angry was America? So angry that the President Obama said he was furious over it. So angry that Republican Connie Mack has asked that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner resign over the issue. So angry that AIG CEO, Edward Liddy, had to sit at a hearing on Capitol Hill to explain the bonuses and his company. So angry that the House of Representatives passed a measure taxing 90% of all bonuses issued by companies receiving TARP funds. So angry that the New York Attorney General has subpoenaed the names and information of those receiving the bonus. (despite the fact that many of these people [ and their families] have been threatened with violence).

So angry, that for the last week all government has come to a screeching halt to deal with $165 million dollars. That sounds like an enormous amount of money to your average individual and it's easy to understand how your everyday person can balk at the sound of AIG giving away that much money to people from the department who caused the crash. But, if you're in Washington and you're dealing with a $400 billion (not million) dollar budget and a multi-trillion (with a "T") dollar deficit why are you wasting all your time with $165 million dollars?

These bonuses represent about 1/1,000 of the money given for bailouts. That's 0.1%. We have clogged up our tv's, newspapers and websites expressing outrage at 1/10 of a precent of the bail out money. This money won't make the difference in the economy, it won't mean the difference between success and failure at AIG and it isn't going to kill any taxpayer. So why have we put all levels of government, and news in a gridlock for what is, essentially, less money that Bill Gates spends on toilet paper? Here's an idea, in the 2008 election Republican candidate John McCain lost a lot of ground by appearing to not get the common man. His wife wore thousand dollar outfits and McCain couldn't even recall how many houses he had. So now, everyone is striving to connect to the common man. And what does the common man hate? "These wall street fat cats, taking million dollar bonuses, when they're companies should be belly up". So who's mad about it? Republicans! But the Democrats can't be one upped. So they're not just mad, they're furious! Never one to give up a fight republicans want accountability and want the Treasury Secretary to resign and want the names and addresses of the bonus recipients....AND WE'LL TAX THE FUCKERS!

And on and on and on it goes. Who's the most outraged? Who cares? This is such a small matter that it shouldn't have even popped up on anyone's radar and now it's officially brought our government to a grinding halt for an entire week. This is 1/1,000 of the overall bailout and is being paid not for performance but retention, while the employees of this department in AIG "wind down" the books and essentailly put themselves out of work. It's hard to keep people who know they'll be unemployeed so that's why they're getting bonuses. Oh, also, these aren't the people who caused the crash, they're all long gone (at least that's what Liddy claims). But for some reason this has become the bee in everyone's ass, and in the process we've seen that both political parties can act like completely irrational douchebags when they want to appeal to the American public. Really good to know that's what they think we're all like.